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Have you ever had one of those mornings where reality is just so far outside of what is normal that it makes you think you are still dreaming? Let's see here...waking up next to pretty girl...check. Waffle hunting expedition...check. Brightly colored party-goers making a conga line past the cabin door...check. I pinch my arm. "OW!" Yep, I'm awake and this is all just waaaay beyond me.
I stare at the line going past the door. "They started a party at 6am? What kind of train did we get on?" Evette jumps up and down, "I know! I know! It must be one of those summer break things for college kids! Wheeeeeee!!!!" She runs out into the hall with the dance crowd. From down the hall I hear, "Oh COOL! That is the is most awesome gunshot victim costume EVER!!!!" Evette runs back in. "You just HAVE to see this! It's a halloween freakshow thing in JUNE! So...awesome...!"
I take a closer look at the party group and see that every single one of them does indeed appear to be dressed like a critically injured or dead person. Not only that, but just about every one of them appears to be dressed from a different time period. Pick a noteworthy civilization from history and there is some dead looking person from there dancing around like they are at the social event of the century. Angelia and I look at each other with puzzled expressions. "What is going on here?" Chloe sits up peering behind the curtain, "Uh...guys? I don't think we're in Kansas anymore..."
I pull back the curtain and instead of a sunrise over some field in the midwest, things are still dark outside. I don't mean dark like nighttime. I mean dark like pure void blackness. Wisps of fluffy blue-green vapor drift by outside like small magical clouds, but that is it. Nothing else to see here folks, go back the way you came. I turn back to the dancing crowd and see them break into a sing-a-long of "I'm on a hiiiighwaaaay to hell~"
I try to wrap my mind around what I have just seen. "We need to find out what this place is." Chloe just motions to the people in the hall, "Well, go right ahead mister leader. Go talk to them." I swallow and hesitantly step into the hall. "Uh, hello...anyone fill me in on where we are?" A hippie looking guy with a violently bright tie-dye shirt turns to me. "Welcome to the afterlife, man!" I just stare at him, which really hurts my eyes by the way, "We're dead?!?" "Of course, man! This is the train to the promised land! Angel babes, non-stop parties, the good stuff!" I look at him questioningly, "I kinda though the jump to the next life would be a bit...well, quicker than a train ride." He shrugs, "I don't know, man. I never been dead before. I just followed the light, ya know?" "THE LIGHT!!!!!!" A terrified voice screams out.
My heart nearly jumps out of my chest at the sudden noise. I make my way through the crowd to where ithe sound came from and find a short man who is dressed like a priest of some kind. He is crouched down hugging his knees to his chest as he rocks back and forth. "No...don't trust the light...it is leading us astray! If only I had known...how did I not see it..." He get to his feet. "Must find it...yes...turn it off so no more follow..." He then runs down the hall and is quickly lost among the sea of dancers.
I head back into the sleeper cabin with the others. Chloe looks up, "So, anything useful?" I rub my chin as I think about what both figures said. "Maybe. I am starting to think these may be the lost souls we are looking for and that something here is trapping them...a light of some kind." Nos sits up, "Well, it's a place to start. Let's go find this light." I look at her and nod. "Right. Let's split up then. One group can go forward to the engine. The other group can check the rear."
Angelia quickly blurts out, "I'll go with Sean!" Chloe eyes me like I am some sort of criminal. "Not alone you aren't!" Evette jumps over and grabs my arm, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Ooh! Me! Take me too!" Angelia tenses up and stares at Evette until I wrap my free arm around hers. She seems to snap out of whatever she was thinking as she blinks and looks up at me. I say, "These teams will work. Let's meet back here in a bit." I look at Evette and Angelia, "Ladies, shall we be on our way then?" We head towards the front of the train and Evette starts singing, "Oh, we're off to see the wizard~..." as she skips along.
We make our way forward into the baggage cars and I suddenly feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of places this light might be hiding in. "Ok, keeps your eyes open and tell me about any possible light sources you see. Flashlights, projector equipment, camera flashes, whatever...." Evette and Angelia both nod. I say, "Good. Any questions?" Evette shouts out, "Yes!" She turns to Angelia, "When are you going to kiss him?!?" Angelia just freezes in her tracks, "W-what...? I...I..." Evette adds, "C'mon! It's not that hard! Let me show you!" Before I can react, she whips around, grabs my cheeks, and plants a fairly serious kiss on my lips. It is now my turn to blush in front of Angelia as the kiss freezes me in my tracks.
Evette just turns and starts skipping further ahead in the car. "I'll just search up here so you two can practice!" Angelia and I both just give each other stunned looks before we slowly turn and half-heartedly start to dig through the suitcases. After a few minutes, I hear Angelia ask, "D-did you enjoy that...?" I turn to look at her and answer quickly, "No! I mean...yes, kinda...but not with her! I would much rather do it with...." "EEEEEEEEE!!!! You two are so CUTE together!!!" Evette shouts as she comes hurrying back to us. "But cuteness is like a walrus, it doesn't help us find the light. Go, go, go!" She pushes us onward.
Meanwhile, towards the back of the train. Nos and Chloe do their best to slip through the crowd. After just a few moments of getting jostled around by the crowd though, Nos has had enough and just starts pushing people out of the way. She flings a sailor so hard, he bounces off the wall and lands face first on the floor. "Nos! Show some respect for the dead!" Nos just throws out both arms to direct Chloe's attention to the sailor who is laughing hysterically on the floor. "He doesn't seem to mind!" she says and turns to swat the next spirit out of the way. Chloe looks uneasy about the aggressive approach, but she stays quiet as they are now moving much faster along their path.
After passing through several cars, they eventually reach a door that is labeled 'Staff Quarters. Do not Enter'. Nos tries to open the door anyways, but it is locked. She gives it a solid kick out of annoyance, but it holds firmly in place. She looks around and sees a shadowy corner off to one side. Closing her eyes and concentrating for a moment, she calms her mind and can feel another shadowy spot close by, on the other side of the door. "Stay here a minute." she tells Chloe. Chloe looks at her, not understanding. "What? Where are you going? Wait!" But Nos is already walking into the shadows and fades like a ghost.
On the other side of the wall, Nos steps out into a small room lit only by a slowly pulsing green light. She rounds the corner and sees small room. It is completely bare except for a small pedestal in the center of the room with an old fashion train conductor's lantern resting on it. The lantern has an unnatural golden glow at it's heart that softens to a pale green as it shines forth. Nos whistles to herself. "10 bucks says this is the thing we are looking for..." She grabs the lantern and heads for the door, but it is locked from this side as well. Further complicating things, the light of the lantern erases nearby shadows, preventing her from being able to get out the same way she got in. "Damn! I'll have to come back for this." Nos replaces the lantern and shadowsteps back outside the room. She grabs Chloe by the arm and pulls her back towards the front of the train. "C'mon. We need to find the others."
Back at the front part of the train, I can't stop thinking about the kiss. Not Evette, just the kiss and how much I really wish it was Angelia there instead. I want so much to tell her, but I can't seem to find the right words. Gah! I am the son of Aphrodite for crying out loud! Isn't this suppossed to be natural to me? I guess not. I continue to wrestle with my thoughts as our search presses on until we encounter another figure rummaging through the bags. He looks up at us and steps into the middle of the walkway. I see he is dressed in a train engineer's uniform. "No passengers are suppossed to be in this part of the train. Why don't you all go back to the party?" The words wash over me with the same feel as when my sister Drew is trying to sugar talk someone into doing something. Angelia and Evette both start to turn, but I grab their arms. "Uh, no thanks. I think we are a bit partied out already."
The man looks at me with surprise. "Oh? Just who are you? Show me your ticket!" I fumble through my pockets and pull out the stubs of the train tickets we used to board originally. He just shakes his head. "No, no, no. Those won't do at all! No valid ticket...no ride..." With that his eyes start to glow a bright orange and his face starts to distort and twist into something monsterous. Something sprouts from his back, ripping through his shirt, but I don't wait long enough to see what it is. I push the girls back the way we came. "RUN!!!"
We sprint back towards the rear of the train, with the monsterous engineer close behind. I only glance over my shoulder one and see what I can only describe as a red, fire-breathing demon with black wings behind us, smashing his way through any obstacles instead of dodging around them like we are doing. He is gaining ground on us. We reach the passenger cars again starting to run out of breath, but from behind us I hear, "No! Out of the way fools! Get...out...of...my...way!!!" I lok back and the demon seems to be getting delayed by the dancing spirits. Maybe he is under orders not to harm them or maybe he can't harm them. I don't know. I don't care. I just know he can't navigate the crowd as fast as we can and we start to pull away from him again.
As we go sprinting through the next car, we suddenly find ourselves running right into Nos and Chloe and are all knocked to the floor. As we scramble back to our feet, Chloe grabs my sttentions, "Hey Sean! We found something you all need to know about." "Later!", I say, "We have more urgent problems!" Nos looks at me, "Like what?" The demon comes bursting through the door behind us. "Like that! Run!" We try to get away, but the crowd is much thicker here and we are now being slowed down more than the demon is. I see an access hatch leading to the outside. I point and yell to the group, "Through there!" Chloe hesistates, "But we don't know what is out there!" I push her towards the door, "Well then, we are about to find out!"
Outside the door, we find ourselves on a narrow service walkway that hangs out over the void. Ghostly tracks whizz by through a silver mist under the wheels. A narrow ladder leads up to the roof. "Up there!" I call out and we all make the short climb upwards. Now the odd thing is, despite the apparent speed of the train and and wispy clouds whipping by, there is no wind. The effect is very disorienting. We keep our bearings though and make a fast sprint along the roof towards the end of the train.
A few moments later the demon comes sailing up over the edge of the roof behind us...and he brought friends. Angelia quickly draws her bow and Nos suddenly has a pair of throwing knives in her hands. They let fly with their shots, each one landing solid hits on some of the lesser demons. The winged creatures screech as they go plummeting down into the mist and disappear in a muted burst of red light. The main demon keeps coming and smaller demons continue to come up behind him further towards the front of the train. Angelia and Nos fire again and each one continues to drop their targets into the mist creating colorful bursts of light as they disappear. However, it is not enough. The demons can use their wings to close with us too fast out here in the open. Chloe's eyes light up with an idea. "I know what to do! Get back down below!" She starts to scramble down the nearest ladder to the narrow service ledge below. I follow after, as does Evette. Nos and Angelia coming down last to cover us as long as they can.
Chloe points to some planter boxes hung outside the windows of the passenger cabins for decorations. She closes her eyes and concentrates hard. Plants begin to grow at an extraordinary rate. Vines, stems, and branches snake down the side of the train, curling underneath it when they reach the bottom. They start to interweave with each other creating a kind of net hanging from the bottom of the train, just inches off the ground. "Down there! Hurry!" Chloe shouts and jumps down into the plant net. Her weight not causing the firm surface to buckle at all. I jump down and Evette follows with a loud "Wheeeeee!".
Chloe directs the plants further and the netting snakes out further ahead of us along the underside of the train. We use pipes, hoses, metal flanges, whatever we can grab to pull us along. It is quite dirty under here, but the demons seem unable to follow us. The few small ones that try quickly find thorny vines entangling their legs and wings, holding them immobile. I know the demons haven't given up though and they are almost assuredly waiting for us at the very end of the train when we run out of cars to hide under. I start looking for options. "There!" I shout out and point to a square panel above us in the center of the car.
The latches on the panel have not been used in a long time, if ever and take all my strength to budge, but they eventually creek open and I push the panel up into the space above. I pull myself up next and find myself in a hallway right out side the door to the crew quarters. I reach back down to help each of the girls climb up. Chloe exclaims, "This is it! This is where Nos found the light!" Nos adds, "Yeah, but the door is locked and I can't bring the light out here to you." Evette jumps up and down with excitement. "I can do it! I'll use my fireball!" we all stare at her as she gets down in a martial arts stance and does an amazingly convoluted wind-up then, "HADOKEN!!!!!" and the door creeks open slowly. "See! See! I told you so! Waaahhh!!! Haiya!" I don't have the heart to tell her about the click that came from her foot or the shallow concealed depression that she is now standing on.
We run inside the room and gather around the glowing lantern Nos found earlier. Chloe looks it over, "What now?" I consider what we have learned so far. "We need to put it out. I think that will break the trap. or at least stop it from luring anyone else in." Angelia speaks up, "But how? There are no controls or openings or anything..." Nos just crosses her arms impatiently, "Then we break it open." Evette looks suddenly excited, "Fireball?" Nos just sighs, grabs the lantern and throws it on the floor. CLUNK! Nothing, no damage at all. She picks it up, swings it around and bashes it solidly into the wall a few times. Plaster chips fall off the cracked wall, but the lantern is still undamaged. I add, "Maybe celestial bronze! It is probably godly in nature." Nos nods and gets out her gauntlets. She rams the spikes down hard on the metal lantern case, but they just clatter off to the side.
"Awwww....Can't get it open? Too bad. Looks like your time has run out, kiddies." The voice comes from the demon standing in the open doorway. I grab the lantern off the floor and we all start to back up towards the wall at the opposite end of the room. I notice a square on the floor in the dim light that looks similar to what Evette just stepped on a few minutes ago. I stomp down on it and the door behind us swings open. "Go!" We all rush through and find ourselves on a sort of open balcony on the very back of the train, with a narrow set of stairs at the end leading down to the ghostly tracks.
"Shut the door!" I yell as we all get through. I drop the lantern and slam my shoulder against the door to push it closed. Chloe joins me and we slam it shut just in time to feel the thud of the demon against it on the other side. He apparently knows about the switch too though as we hear the lock release and there is solid push from the other side. Chloe and I hold, but just barely. Angelia calls out, "Behind us!" I take a quick look and see some of the smaller demons gliding down on their wings to grab onto the balcony railing. Nos yells, "Keep them away from the lantern!" as she goes to work punching them out of the air with her spiked fists. Angelia draws her bow and shoots down several more. Evette just grabs the latern and dances around in the center of the landing. "I'm a conductor now! Woowoo! All aboard for Funtown!!!!!"
As I press against the door, I try to think back on our trip for anything that may help us. The prophecy? Anything the ghosts said? What am I missing? I think back to the running fight on the train platform right before we boarded and it hits me. "That's it! I know what has to be done! Evette! Switch places with me!" I take the lantern from her as she pushes against the door in my place. Evette and Chloe gets bounced a little without my strength. "Woo! Ride em cowgirl!" Evette calls out. I grab Chloe's staff and brace it against the door to give them more help before moving to the back edge of the balcony where Nos and Angelia are fighting. I step down onto the stairs leading off the train. Angelia looks down at me in shock. "What are you doing?!?" I look back up at her. "What I have to..." I grab my necklace with the silver pendant and pull it off my neck. I press it into Angelia's hand. "Keep this to remember me, in case I am wrong..." "Wait!" I hear her yell fade away as I let myself fall from the train and into the void, the lantern tucked under my arm.
A bright golden burst of light flashes distantly in the mist and the train begins to shake and bounce if if an earthquake just hit it. Nos grabs hold of the railing with one hand to keep from falling and grabs the stunned Angelia with her other. Chloe grabs her staff, which is still firmly wedged between door and railing. Evette goes bouncing into the air and clings to one of the support beams for the balcony's cloth roof. A great blast of wind catches up with the train from behind. As it washes over the train, cracks appear along the train's exterior. Chucks of roof start to break away and the blue-green ghosts of the party-goers float up into the sky before fading away. The demons caught in the wind begin to blister and smoke before flaring briefly into intense fire and then fading into ash piles that are quickly blown away. The girls scream and close their eyes as the howling wind blasts apart the remains of the train around them. And then silence....
The girls open their eyes and see that they are clinging to the rusted remains of an old train caboose. They blink in the bright sunlight. All around them is a scrapyard. A graveyard for trains. A narrow road runs past the gate to the scrapyard. A truckstop can be seen off in the distance. Nos tests her footing and climbs down to the ground. "C'mon everyone. Let's find out where we are and see how we can get back to camp." Chloe nods, tears in her eyes, and climbs down after Nos. Evette jumps down in a big leap, "Did you see that?!? It was BOOM! and WHOOSH!! Let's do it again!!!!!" Angelia just stands there and looks down at the necklace in her hand, "He's gone..."